The fundamental modernization of the German public administration is gaining significant momentum - and the Rulemapping Group’s technology platform provides the blueprint for it.
At the 5th Digital Ministers’ Conference (DMK) in Hamburg, the digital ministers of the federal states passed groundbreaking resolutions to reduce bureaucratic hurdles, accelerate business start-ups, and make data protection law more innovation-friendly. The most far-reaching and forward-looking decision of the conference marks a true paradigm shift for the federal IT infrastructure: the establishment of a cross-state real-world lab for “Law as Code” under the leadership of Thuringia.
It is no coincidence that this innovative approach is now set to become a nationwide standard. It is the direct result of successful technological pioneering work that Rulemapping, together with the Thuringian Ministry for Digital Affairs and Infrastructure (TMDI), has already put into practice.
Thuringia is leading the way – with rulemapping as its technological foundation
Thuringia is taking the lead nationwide in the digitization of lawmaking and law enforcement because the state adopted the right technology early on. Thuringia’s Minister for Digital Affairs, Steffen Schütz, explained at the conference in Hamburg:
"With ‘Law as Code,’ we are opening up a new dimension of digitalization: the law is being directly integrated into digital decision-making structures. This streamlines administrative processes, enhances legal certainty, and improves the efficiency of government services for citizens.”
To make this vision a reality across the board, Thuringia was officially tasked by the DMK with working together with the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization (BMDS) to develop a concrete implementation and financing proposal for the real-world laboratory by the next meeting.
Rulemapping actively supports this process with its technological expertise.
Our platform provides the methodological foundation for demonstrating how legally compliant and traceable automation based on “law-as-code” can function within a federal structure. The planned real-world laboratory is intended to serve as a development and testing environment for standard-compliant digitalization and will perform the following core tasks:
- Development of methods, standards, and open-source tools for law-as-code applications.
- Provision of reusable components for enforcement processes at the federal and state levels.
- Definition of quality criteria for legally compliant and traceable automation.
- Integration of the solutions into existing federal IT standards.
From Proof of Concept to a Nationwide Benchmark: the “ReBasE” Project
Our joint flagship project “ReBasE” (Rule-Based and AI-Supported Decision Support in Building Permit Procedures) demonstrates just how effective this approach already is in practice. As an official technology and solutions partner of the TMDI, and in close cooperation with Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the GovTech Campus Thuringia, we have revolutionized the automated review of building permit applications.
Building permit procedures are among the most complex and document-intensive processes in local government. This is precisely where we have applied our combination of Rule AI and deterministic rule-based systems:
- High degree of automation through rulemaps: Using our no-code platform, natural-language legal texts and building codes have been converted into machine-readable decision trees (“rulemaps”). Application documents are digitally scanned and checked against a logic engine with more than 500 validation nodes. The result: A large portion of the initial review steps can already be automated on our platform today.
- Human-in-the-loop approach: Direct interaction by case workers is necessary in only a fraction of cases. Even for highly complex building code reviews, our system combines automated logic with targeted opportunities for manual intervention by on-site experts.
- Measurable relief in practice: The ongoing test phases with the lower-level building authorities in the districts of Greiz and Saalfeld-Rudolstadt are already demonstrating significant potential for time savings per building application.
This project, which is being supported academically by the Technical University of Munich and Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences, was designed from the outset as a scalable platform. Thanks to close coordination with Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the planned integration with the EfA process room (One for All) of the “Digital Building Permit” system, Rulemapping already provides the technological solution for the federal rollout.
Conclusion: Ready to scale up digital legislation
The decision by the Conference of Digital Ministers to establish a central real-world laboratory underscores the importance of machine-readable legal logic. We look forward to continuing to support this initiative as a methodological partner and contributing our expertise to enable modern digital services nationwide. Rulemapping stands ready to support the states and the federal government in this transformation and to work together to make the vision of a seamless administration a reality.
Would you like learn more about how we translate highly complex building regulations into a digital verification logic? You can find out more about the pioneering use case ‘Faster planning permission with Rule AI’ on our Solutions page.
